Launching new NASA solar sail technology into orbit is Rocket Lab
Following a SpaceX Starlink launch earlier today (April 23), it was the second liftoff in a 16-minute period.
This evening, April 23, Rocket Lab launched a South Korean
Earth monitoring satellite and novel NASA solar sailing technology into orbit.
Today at 6:33 p.m. EDT (2233 GMT; 10:33 a.m. on April 24 New Zealand time), two
payloads, including the agency's Advanced Composite Solar Sail System, or ACS3,
lifted off atop a Rocket Lab Electron spacecraft from New Zealand.
It turned out that the Rocket Lab mission was the second half of a double
header in spaceflight; only sixteen minutes earlier, at 6:17 p.m. EDT (2217
GMT), SpaceX had launched twenty-three of its Starlink internet satellites from
Florida.
Similar to how seagoing ships use wind to move themselves
through the atmosphere, solar sails use the slight push of sunlight to propel
probes into space. Many proponents of exploration have great hopes for solar
sailing because it is an efficient and fuel-free propulsion method.
A few solar sailing missions, such as the Planetary Society's LightSail 2 and
Japan's Ikaros spacecraft, have already taken to the skies. The goal of ACS3 is
to advance the technology.
"The mission plans to test the deployment of new composite booms that will unfurl the solar sail to measure approximately 30 feet [9 metres] per side, or about the size of a small flat in total," Rocket Lab stated in its mission description.
"Flight data obtained during the demonstration will be
used for designing future larger-scale composite solar sail systems for space
weather early-warning satellites, asteroid and other small body reconnaissance
missions, and missions to observe the polar regions of the sun," the
business stated.
The secondary payload on today's flight, dubbed "Beginning of the
Swarm" by Rocket Lab, was ACS3. The primary traveller was NEONSAT-1, an
Earth-observation satellite created by the Korea Advanced Institute of Science
and Technology's Satellite Technology Research Centre.
According to Rocket Lab, NEONSAT-1 will monitor and track
natural disasters along the Korean coastline using a high-resolution camera and
artificial intelligence technology. This is why the name "Beginning of the
Swarm" comes from the fact that further NEONSAT spacecraft are scheduled
to launch in 2026 and 2027, expanding the constellation.
The two spacecraft were destined for distinct orbits. About 50 minutes after
takeoff, the Electron launched NEONSAT-1 323 miles (520 km) above Earth, and 55
minutes later, as scheduled, it dropped ACS3 at a height of 620 miles (1,000
km).
Launched into orbit on April 5, 2024, "Beginning of the
Swarm" marked Rocket Lab's 47th orbit launch overall. Up till now, the
business has only launched from its location in New Zealand, which is located
on the Mahia Peninsula of the North Island; the remaining liftoffs have taken
place from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.
The goal of Rocket Lab is to make the first stage of the 59-foot-tall
(18-meter-tall) Electron reusable. On several previous missions, the business
has recovered boosters from the ocean, and on a future launch, it intends to
refly one of them. Recuperation activities, however, were absent from
"Beginning of the Swarm."